On the shelves - July 9

The books listed below are now available for checkout at the Clovis-Carver Public Library. The library is open to the public, but patrons can still visit the online catalog at cloviscarverpl.booksys.net/opac/ccpl or call 575-769-7840 to request a specific item for curbside pickup.

“The Libyan Diversion”by Joel C. Rosenberg. Abu Nakba—the man responsible for lethal attacks in Washington, D.C., London, and Jerusalem—is finally dead. Marcus Ryker has been tasked with hunting down and destroying what’s left of the terror group Kairos. But before Ryker can mobilize his team of CIA operatives with their new assignment, a disturbing report from Libya suggests all may not be as it seems. The U.S. bombing that should have taken out Nakba’s headquarters now appears to have been a disastrous mistake—and Ryker himself may be responsible. With Kairos gearing up for a major retaliatory strike against the U.S., time is short, and terror cells may already be inside American borders. But Ryker won’t be able to stop this threat until he clears his own name, and his closest ally inside the White House can no longer help him.

“I’ll Never Tell” by Philippa East. To the outside world, the Goodlights are perfect. Julia is a lawyer, Paul a stay-at-home dad who has dedicated his life to helping their daughter Chrissie achieve her dreams as a talented violinist. But on the night of a prestigious music competition, which has the power to change everything for Chrissie and her family, Chrissie goes missing. Suddenly every single crack, every single secret that the family is hiding risks being exposed. Because the Goodlights aren’t perfect. Not even close.

“Women Talking” by Miriam Toews. One evening, eight Mennonite women climb into a hay loft to conduct a secret meeting. For the past two years, each of these women, and more than a hundred other girls in their colony, has been repeatedly violated in the night by demons coming to punish them for their sins. Now that the women have learned they were in fact drugged and attacked by a group of men from their own community, they are determined to protect themselves and their daughters from future harm. While the men of the colony are off in the city, attempting to raise enough money to bail out the rapists and bring them home, these women-all illiterate, without any knowledge of the world outside their community and unable even to speak the language of the country they live in-have very little time to make a choice: Should they stay in the only world they’ve ever known or should they dare to escape?

“Hortus Curious” by Michael Perry. Plants are truly awe-inspiring. They can be vast, minute, smelly, or spectacularly ugly. This book explores them all, bringing together the most peculiar and most fascinating plants on the planet – celebrating them in all their diverse splendor.

“Dehydration” by Jeanette Hurt. Dehydrating is easy and inexpensive, and the results are loaded with flavor and nutrition. If you have a bumper crop of garden vegetables, scored a deal on in-season fruit at the farmer’s market, or have a neighbor with more fresh oregano than they know what to do with, there’s no better way to preserve your bounty than by dehydrating!

“Retracing the Iron Curtain” by Timothy Phillips. Initially a victory line where Allies met at the end of World War II, the Iron Curtain quickly became the front of a new kind of war. It divided Europe from north to south for a staggering forty-five years. But what has the Iron Curtain left in its wake? Timothy Phillips travels its full 3,000-mile route—from inside the Arctic Circle to where Armenia meets Azerbaijan and Turkey—to craft this epic new people’s history of a defining 20th-century conflict. Here, in the borderlands where a powerful clash of civilizations took form in concrete and barbed wire, he uncovers the remarkable stories of everyday people forever imprinted by life in the Curtain’s long shadow.

— Summaries provided by library staff